


a study in how moonlight tastes

by lilypadwriter



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 22:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19981504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilypadwriter/pseuds/lilypadwriter
Summary: Love or; how each loser feels more like themselves when they’re together.





	a study in how moonlight tastes

It is the ease in which Bill loses himself around Eddie. One moment, thoughts flutter untamed with hurricane-intent through his mind, and then Eddie blots each one out with his hands. “What are you thinking about?” he’d ask, cheek resting against Bill’s shoulder. Bill, nose buried in locks, eyes refusing to open because all the light he needed to see was held against him. “Nothing,” Bill would respond and the truth felt like a prayer. 

It is that, but it’s also Richie wacking at the back of his feet with a stick. “Brat,” Bill would scold and Richie came at him, stick turning into a sword. 

Richie’s laughter, a high note sweeping through his throat, a crackle of rushing water over stones - Bill let the sound shake his heart. “You love me,” Richie would counter, tongue caught between teeth as he struck again.

Bill didn’t protest. Instead, he searches for a stick and attacks right back.

With Mike, it is the quiet. Tendrils of silence creeping over their heels as they read together. Shoulder to shoulder, one book split between them, no words were spared in the shared air. It is enough to be warm, it is enough to be safe. Eyes catch on words, muted chuckles exchanged. Sometimes, if Bill was particularly lucky, Mike’s warm hand would press against his cheek and the two would share in a kiss as tenderly as they shared in silence. 

It’s never so quiet with Beverly, but it is in her vibrancy. 

She grabs a deodorant bottle when they’re in his room, belting out some pop song into it. “You don’t know that song?” she pauses, halfway through a dance, holding out the deodorant to Bill. Eyebrows raise at her, knit together, but the smile on his lips was carved into stone - there was no way it was leaving his face. 

“I don’t know that song.”

“I think you know the song,” she challenges. She teases him to his feet and the two spin around the room, loudly belting a song they both only half-know the lyrics to. She screams them right into his ear, head falling against his shoulder, short ginger curls tickling at his cheek. Soon, his mother would call at them both to quiet down, to which both of them would share a look and burst into laughter. 

It is sunlight cutting through Stan’s curls. No matter how serpent-fierce his tongue became, a weapon held between porcelain lips, the summer glow that shimmered around Stan’s body always betrayed his softness.It is the taste of sun on Stan’s mouth as they kissed; bodies growing soft together, fitting against each other. 

“You stink,” Stan would say, but he’d let himself be cuddled closer, held tighter. 

It is Ben’s shy features, the brutal reddened burn covering him from head to toe, as Bill read over his poetry. 

“You’re stretching the rhyme on the end of line six.” Blue pen underlines words, cutting out, putting in. Ben would glance over his shoulder, read his comments, then duck away again as his blush deepened. Halfway through, Bill would reach out to take Ben’s hand in his own. They’d be a little clammy, the sheen of embarrassment touching over him, but Ben would lift the hand to his lips and kiss at the knuckles.

It is the act of helping each other and then it is the act of forgetting about everything else in the world.

* * *

For Richie, it was the booming laughter pealing from Mike’s throat when he told a joke. No matter how subpar, no matter how unfunny, Mike would offer a gentle snort and a friendly pat on the back. His hands are so big and warm, so impossibly gentle, that the simple act would have Richie aching for more, more, more. It riles him up, makes him desperate for more, so joke after joke falls from his lips. “Hey, what do you call a deer with no eyes?” And Mike responds as if he’s never heard it before, as if Richie hasn’t repeated the same joke a thousand times. 

“Your hair is unruly,” Stan comments, fingers threading through Richie’s locks. He places his head on Stan’s thigh, eyes closed beneath the bottle-rim glasses that were about a million years out of date. If Richie cared about fashion, though, he wouldn’t be wearing a pink and green palm tree shirt.

“I brushed it, like, four times this morning.” Nose scrunches up as his eyes spring open. Stan, feather-light, trails his fingers over Richie’s jaw, smooths out the ridges of his nose. Touches at his lips, watching them part. 

“You didn’t do a good job,” Stan muses, but his voice is tinged with the promise of laughter. Richie kisses it all away. 

It is Bill cleanings his glasses with the hem of his shirt when Richie’s is already too messy. Mud was stuck in patches across it, shoulder ripped from when he had been caught by trees - boy had never learned to do things by halves, the childhood sheen of  _ too much  _ still stuck to him, so a simple day out could turn Richie into a hurricane. He slides them back onto Richie’s face, pushing away the slight curls that were trapped behind the arms. 

It is Ben slipping a cassette into the player. It is the gentle thrum of music spilling over the room, a thousand love ballads tinting the air with its soft pink tones. 

“Your hands are so soft,” Richie would say, glancing at where their palms touch, where their fingers entwine. Ben taps a beat against his fingers - Richie knows it’s a little out of tune, a little offbeat, but it’s still cute to feel Ben lose himself. 

“Shh,” Ben replies. Pain would cut like a warm knife through his heart if it was anyone else, if they were anyone else, but Richie’s mouth falls shut with a half-smile because it’s  _ Ben  _ and they’re here. 

It is summer afternoons where the sun is still brutal, two teenagers escaping inside to warn off the sun. “I told you to put on suncream before we went out,” Beverly scolds, rubbing it into his bare shoulders - a last ditch effort to dull the bright red glow that would soon become peeling skin. “You’re only two shades darker than me, Richie. And the moon could give me sunburn.” More is rubbed into his skin as Richie hugs at his knees, a pout shining over his lips. Beverly presses a kiss to his suncream-slick shoulders (immediately regretting it as the cloying taste filled her mouth), but his pout disappears. 

“Stop moving,” Eddie groans. It is the early hours, but the two don’t often sleep when they’re together - they don’t sleep much alone, either. Nightmares don’t stop when their together, they aren’t quelled by presence; there is safety and comfort, but their trauma is a third person, as closely pressed against Richie as Eddie is. 

There is no rest, but there is the gentle touch of peace. “I gotta get comfy.”

“You are comfy,” Eddie protests, tightening his arm around the other’s waist, head burrowing into Richie’s shoulder. He yawns into the patch of bare skin. It is the way their breathing matches, beat by beat, the steady pulse of their hearts timing -  _ thud, thud, thud.  _

* * *

It is Mike’s lips against the crook of Be’s ear. “Pretty boy,” he would coo, gentle whisper tracing itself across his spine until the other shivers. Mike’s teeth caught on his lobe, and Ben wiggles in his lap, elbow digging into his spine. His back is against Mike’s chest, comic spread across their laps, utterly ignored. “Pretty, pretty boy,” Mike would laugh against his neck, another hundred kisses trailing there. Teeth again, pressed against his shoulder blade. A sigh puffed against his skin. 

“Ooooh, look at this.” Beverly’s sticky voice was softened by her awe. Glossy magazine is flipped over and Ben puts his own to the side to eye the page. 

“What am I looking at?” Ben would ask. Eyes flutter across the page as she tilts it into the light, shuffling closer until they sit shoulder to shoulder. Her perfume was cherry-scented, washing over Ben in gentle waves. 

“Fall collection. Look at the skirts!” It is the way they gush together, interest taken with genuine intent.

It is Richie’s fingers tangled in a yoyo. He throws it out in front of him, but the string keeps going slack, falling to the ground. “Wait, wait, I can do it. Just follow me.” It is Ben appeasing him as seconds flash away, as attempts fail, as Richie grows frustrated enough to throw it on the ground. It’s Richie’s pout as he rests against Ben’s shoulder. “I know how to do it. Bev showed me,” he promises with a sniffle. “I believe you,” Ben assures, pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

“I think you’d like this book,” Bill hums, pressing a hardback book into the spread of Ben’s hands.

Fingers touch the golden inscription, the fade around the edges forcing it to look worn. With all the worshipful intent of a true follower, Ben lifts the cover to stare at the first page. They were yellow with age, wrinkled from use - someone, who hadn’t known the beauty of preservation, had dog-eared a few pages from where they had paused in their pursuit of knowledge. He touches them with his finger, trying to straighten it out.

“I love it,” Ben breathes.

“You haven’t even read it yet,” Bill said and it is in his laughter, an unashamed song slicing the air into rivulets. 

It is Eddie putting a band-aid over the cut on Ben’s leg, his jeans rolled out to show off the small wound. “I carry them with me,” Eddie explains, smoothing it across his knee. A wince, Ben’s tongue bitten between his teeth to stop a whine; he should have been looking where he was going but, one quick glance at Eddie, and suddenly he was on the floor. Boy leaned forward, kiss pressed against the band-aid. “Ugh. That’s so unhygenic. Don’t tell anyone.” Eddie would smile, wiping at his lips.

“Is Bill not coming over to study?” Stan asks, small glance spared to the opening door as Ben files in. Door is closed quietly behind him and Stan busies himself by shuffling the textbooks around his bed, making space for the other. It is that - the making of space, the way they push aside the world for each other.

“No, he’s staying behind for baseball practice.” 

“He does need the practice,” Stan replies with a coy smile as Ben slides into the bed. Hands reach out and the two delve into statistics.

* * *

It is his hand on the back of Beverly’s bike as he pushes her forward. Soon, he lets go, and she speeds down the hill with loud woops singing from her lips. Mike watches for a beat, for two, and then he races down the hill to catch up with her. “Not quite Silver,” Beverly laughs, holding out her arms to welcome Mike closer. “Silver’s a pile of crap. Don’t tell Bill I said that.” Quick on his tongue, Mike bending over to pat the handlebars of the bike. “This? This is the real deal,” he promises. She looks at him and murmurs  _ yeah. _

“You know, Beverly prefers my bike to yours,” Mike would say days later, squeezed under the bleachers with Bill as rain poured down around them. They had gotten caught in it after practice, and instead of bothering to soak their clothes on the walk home, they took shelter in each other.

“Bullshit,” Bill laughs, turning his head to his lips brush against Mike’s jaw.

“Ask her! Silver’s like a million years old.” Hand captures Bill’s jaw, bringing them close enough for their lips to brush together; the shadow of a kiss, the vague promise of romance, without delivering while the facade of an argument sprung between them.

“Ten years, actually. Or - fifteen. Doesn’t matter.”

It is Richie’s shoes buried deep in sludge and dirt as he plucks eggs from the coop. “Yowza, this egg is bigger than my head,” he whistles, holding it up for Mike to see. Mike glances over his shoulder, also filling the basket with eggs (and doing a much better job at it than Richie, if anyone was to ask). “That’s as big as the other ten you showed me,” Mike replies, eyebrow raising. “Nu uh! This is way bigger,” Richie argues, tripping over himself in his eagerness to put it in the basket - he falls and smashes it, another egg adding to his shirt, and Mike helps him to his feet. 

“My, you’re a polite young boy,” Mike’s mother says, piling food up on Stan’s plate. She had called his figure  _ sickly  _ a few times before, but she held her tongue in front of him, and Mike had never been so thankful.

“Thank you. My father says that anything that can be said with manners, should be.” Stan flashes one of his bright smiles and his mother is immediately won over.

A few more sweet comments on how noble it was for his father to keep such a huge farm in check and they’re both eating out of his hand. 

Beneath the table, Stan’s foot rested against his own, both of them having wiggled out of their shoes hours ago. Every so often, Mike caught Stan flashing smiles at him.

It is Ben’s voice, the loudest buzz rising above the screaming crowd. A homemade sign stretches above the heads of strangers reading ‘You’ve Got This, Mike’ - with the first word being so big that  _ Mike  _ barely fit on the paper. Hand lifted, Mike waved at his friends (more than friends, but what word could he give them, really?). “That’s our Mike!” he heard Ben scream, sign shaking in his hands as he bellowed. Mike won the game, but he didn’t think that would make much of a difference.

It is the moonlight streaming through his window before a body blots it out. Body is a shadow in the darkness, sliding into the world by shaking Mike’s latched window open.

“Your mom?” Mike would ask, the slow curl of sleepiness forcing his voice into a wisp.

“Mhm,” Eddie murmurs. It has been a while since he slept, dark black marks setting under his eyes, and he shuffles into the warm embrace of Mike’s bed and falls asleep in the blink of an eye. 

* * *

It is the gentle understanding between Beverly and Eddie -  _ this is love, yes,  _ but not like that. Not the same way it exists between everyone else. It is hand holding without ever asking more. It’s Eddie’s soft gaze, tongue caught between teeth. “I don’t think I could ever - with a woman.” Timid and shy, hand resting against his arm as if to keep his multitudes contained. It is Beverly’s answering hug, her hand stroking down his back. “It’s okay,” she promises as he shakes into her chest, and then it’s - “You aren’t my type, anyway.” And the joint laugh that follows after. 

“Hold still,” Beverly scolds, before a pin sticks Ben in the side. 

“Ouch,” Ben whimpers, eyes glancing down at Beverly as she worked away. High school had swept them up and, in a flash,  _ prom  _ came like a period in a run-on sentence. Finally, finally, finally --- the only issue was that Ben’s suit was a relic from his father, stuffed away in the attic until Ben had poked through everything. It was about fifty sizes too big.

Always resourceful, Beverly took out her pins and needles and got to work. “That wouldn’t have happened if you were holding still,” she hums, but rolls up his shirt to press a kiss to where the pin had pierced. 

“A dance, my lady?” Stan asks, arm held out to Beverly. She had spent the night giggling away with Betty as the others danced around, looking thoroughly and abhorrently handsome in their suits. Fingers touch at the burgundy covering Stan’s arms, letting herself be guided to the dancefloor. Slow music pours across the hall (people slid away to the sides, too ashamed in themselves to be caught dancing so softly). “Who’s leading?” she laughs and his hands touch at her waist, light as a feather. “You, always,” he murmurs and she doesn’t care about how tacky the gym is, or that she couldn’t afford the prettiest dress, or that her make-up had sweated off hours ago. 

“Tell me what happened at school today,” Mike breathes, hands massaging the delicate skin of her feet. They were bruised from gym, a natural inclination to tripping over herself leading to quite a few scrapes (and she didn’t have to lie anymore about how she got them).

“Ugh, Greta said that Eddie’s hair looked weird and he kept fussing over it all day.”

“But he’s so cute,” Mike protests, digging his thumb into her heel. Her head tips back, eyes falling closed with a light murmur sinking in her throat.

“Right there,” she says and he presses deeper and watches the tension bleed away from her shoulders.

It is the beat of music shaking her bones free in some dingy underground club, a place Richie had played at weeks ago and hadn’t stopped coming back to. Fingers tangle over Beverly’s wrist, drawing her closer to Richie’s body. Everyone is jumping, screaming, lights flash and flash, pools of white touching Richie’s skin before disappearing. His lips are everywhere, he’s trying to talk to her, but she can only catch snippets. Eventually, she catches his lips on hers and everything falls silent. 

“Woah,” Bill breathed as she brushed a few loose strands of hair from her face. It was short enough to still curl, around her ears, at the nape. 

Eyes raised to look at him, eyebrow lifted, small smile breaking over her lips. “Shut up.”

Visits had become less and less as of late --- as kind as her Aunt was, the oddities of Derry were enough to keep anyone away (Beverly had to beg and beg just to be allowed to visit, nevermind stay a night). It is Bill always making time for her when she visits. It is the sudden dropping of all plans, the utter dedication shining in his eyes when he looks at her.

“Make me,” Bill challenges and she does.

* * *

It is Stan pulling out a small bottle of hand sanitizer and squirting it on Eddie’s palms. He rubbed it in, wincing a little at the vague smell of oranges trying too hard to mask the scent of alcohol. “There, all better,” Stan hums and they slide their palms together, entwining their fingers. Stan’s smile is small over the curve of his lips, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing. “My hands are always dirty after Richie is done,” he complains, and Stan slips the bottle into Eddie’s pocket. 

“Is that my shirt?” Mike hums, head lifting from the bed to watch Eddie shuffle into his clothes.

“Oh. Yeah. Mine isn’t exactly clean.” Light broke as sunset over Eddie’s cheeks. Delicate shoulders looked even more petite beneath Mike’s shirt - it was at least three sizes too big for him, a soft grey fabric. Eddie’s tiny fingers curled in it, nose turning into his shoulder like a shy bird with a wounded wing. 

“You look so cute in it.” Sleepy smile touched Mike’s lips. Arms held out to welcome Eddie back into bed, but that just gave him more room to slap lightly at Mike’s hand.

“Not cute,” he grumbled and then slid beside Mike.

It is the school bathrooms, a horrible place for Eddie to be (he never made contact with the walls or doors and that suited him just fine). “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Ben shushed, tissue pulled from his pocket so he could dab at the tears on Eddie’s cheeks. A sniffle left the smaller boy as he stepped towards Ben, searching for warmth and comfort as he sobbed. “They’re idiots, alright? I mean it. This whole school is full of idiots.” Sunny disposition had drifted away from Ben’s features, a scowl replacing his usual smile as he strokes at Eddie’s back.

“Oooh, those are the cutest shorts I’ve ever seen,” Beverly cooed, glancing over Eddie’s shoulder to the item in his hands. Summer was a well-worn look on Beverly who had grown so tall as to rival even Bill and Richie, though she never seemed as gangly and uncoordinated as those two.

“Really? I don’t know if they’d suit me,” Eddie flushed, holding them to his chest.

“No, trust me. Super cute,” she gushed, arm finding its way around his shoulders. She had some jeans hanging over her arm. 

“Oh, are you going to buy those?”

“I don’t have the money,” Beverly shook her head. “I just wanted something to try on.”

Eddie bought them in the end - and the shorts. 

It is his arms laced around Bill’s neck as the other gives him a piggyback over the still lake. “How did you get so tall?” Eddie hums against the other’s shoulder, Bill’s body shaking with his silent laugh. “I’m not so tall. You’re just sort of…” Trailing off, Eddie counters with a  _ do not call me small.  _ “I wasn’t going to say small! But you are small.” Eddie leans down to splash water all over Eddie’s back and, in retaliation, he’s dropped straight into the water. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” Richie’s voice shushes. An inhaler was pressed into Eddie’s open palm, used once, used twice.

He knows that it’s fake. He’s not an idiot (he had known it for sometime, before he’d even been told). There was always a sickly feeling in his chest, but it had never felt like his lungs were closing, that his life was being taken from him in that moment. But the inhaler was a safety mechanism, it kept him grounded.

“You carry this around with you?” Eddie asks, holding up the inhaler.

“Gee, duh, Eds,” Richie grins and helps him to his feet.

* * *

“Hold still,” Bill insists, which Stan had always been good at. Contrary to Richie, who was a flash of movement, Stan had mastered the art of sitting still. Still, curl was falling into his face and he had to brush it away before he lost his mind; the only disturbance to his stillness was something being out of place. “I’ve been holding still for an hour.” Sitting opposite each other on the bed, a piece of paper spread across Bill’s lap, a pencil sketching gently. “And you’ll sit for a few more hours. It’s not my fault you have impossible cheekbones.” Despite himself, Stan smiles.

“A nightjar,” Stan tells him as Mike rifles through the book. 

“I knew that,” Mike insists, letting the book fall shut.  _ Local Birds of Maine  _ was scrawled on the front; it had been a rather selfish present from Stan, given to Mike on his last birthday so he had someone to bird-watch with. Mike hadn't seemed to mind. 

“It’s one of my favourite birds.” Mike catches sight of it, following it with his eyes, before smiling over at Stan.

“Beautiful,” he hums, arm wrapping around Stan’s delicate shoulders.

It is Stan and Eddie curling their bodies into question marks so they fit together. Stan’s hand traced across Eddie’s spine, each notch treated with delicate intent as the smaller boy sobbed and shook. His head was buried in the crook of Stan’s shoulder, a wet patch already emerging. None of them said anything, no words were exchanged between them, but peace settled around them until Eddie grew strong enough to pull back and blink his tear-stained eyelashes.

“You’re not actually running a lemonade stand.” Richie’s kitchen had been empty for exactly twenty minutes (his parents had left that morning for some big work conference that he’d only half paid attention to). In that time, he’d called Stan over and peeled far too many lemons.

“I am! I’m gonna get rich, just you wait. Then you’ll come crawling back, begging for some of this.”

Puff of laughter slips from Stan’s lips as he rests against the counter. Richie was cutting the lemon in a way that was clearly tempting fate, so he had to reach out to halt the other's wrist. In retaliation, Richie leans over and presses their lips together. “Gross. You taste like lemons.”

It is his legs laced with Beverly’s as the two lay across his bed on an afternoon that spoke of too much heat. “Library?” Stan asks, rubbing his foot along Beverly’s hair. She hadn’t shaved for a while, so thin hairs showed across her legs, her shorts doing nothing to hide it. “Ugh,” Beverly responds. Stan reconsiders. “Pool outside?” he murmurs. “Ugh,” she says, once more, with all the same enthusiasm. “Stay inside and do nothing all day?” Beverly turns to him with a sleepy smile. “Uh huh.”

“Thank you for helping me do this,” Ben flushes, sliding a book back into place on the shelf. One down, a hundred to go; he usually asked Mike to do this with him, but he had spent the night with Eddie which very clearly meant  _ do not disturb. _

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Both of them slide books into place, shuffling the books around. “It’s calming.”

Ben glances over his shoulder at Stan, smiling. “Yeah. It is.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed this piece!!!


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